


A New Beginning

by MDST3559014



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007), You Series - Caroline Kepnes
Genre: Alternate Ending, Crossover, F/M, Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22809949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MDST3559014/pseuds/MDST3559014
Summary: Dan Humphrey leaves his life on the Upper East Side for a low-profile job as a bookstore manager
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Serena van der Woodsen, Guinevere Beck/Joe Goldberg, Nate Archibald/Serena van der Woodsen
Kudos: 13





	A New Beginning

He started off his morning like any other, reshelving books at the back of the store. It was quiet at the bookshop, like it was most days. As he organized the books on Mr. Mooney’s “celebrity” author shelf, which included every person even tangentially related to someone famous, his mind began to wander. This relatively mundane daily existence was a far cry from what his life used to be. He hadn’t always been Joe Goldberg. Just a year ago, the world knew him as Dan Humphrey, novelist and husband to Manhattan darling, Serena Van Der Woodsen. He had weaseled his way into the upper echelon of New York Society through Gossip Girl, the website he created in high school that exposed the drama and scandals of the Upper East Side. 

A constant in his life as Dan Humphrey was the fight for inclusion. He wasn’t born into an elite, high-profile family like Serena’s, or the other kids at school. He was the son of a failed rock musician from Brooklyn, an outlier among his peers at Constance and St. Jude. Gossip Girl was his meal ticket. To become one of them, he needed power over them. He exposed their deepest, darkest secrets: he told the world about Blair cheating on Nate, his sister’s affair with Chuck Bass, and Serena’s constant missteps. In the end, despite the havoc he wrecked on their lives, they accepted him as a friend. Everyone knew Dan was behind the airing of their dirty laundry however, in the grand scheme of their lives, it was nothing worse than things they regularly did to each other. The website did no more damage than Chuck trading Blair for his hotel, or Vanessa drugging Serena to convince her family she had gone off the rails. 

Once his connection to the website was revealed and accepted, Dan thought he could simply be himself, no false pretences necessary. The first few years were almost perfect. His novel, Insider, was made into a film that established him as an up-and-coming author. Shortly after, he wrote a follow-up memoir about his quest to become part of New York City’s blue blood society that was met with mild success. He and Serena rekindled their high school romance and, only a year later, were married at home in front of their closest friends. Life seemed pretty complete for Dan Humphrey. 

Unfortunately, the joy was short lived. Despite his early success, Dan was unable to produce new stories. Everything he wrote was stale or derivative; the bright spark everyone had seen in his first novel seemed to be snuffed out. He retreated further into himself, angry over his inability to create. The realization that his success came on the backs of his friends and his wife was hard. He stole their stories, changed a few names, and used them to make himself great. His novel and memoir only sold because of their relation to his Upper East Side friends. No one wanted to hear his original ideas, they only wanted Gossip Girl. This failure was a tough pill for Dan to swallow. The anger festered inside of him, along with a growing resentment towards Serena, as idea after idea failed to come to fruition. Nothing he did would ever be his own. He owed his success to her.   
Dan began to lash out at Serena, criticizing her lavish lifestyle and need to always be the life of the party. As the distance grew between them, Serena sought comfort with her old friend, Nate Archibald. It occured to Serena that she had made a mistake choosing Dan over Nate. Dan didn’t respect her in the way she deserved, and she saw his bitter resentment as proof of that. A mere eight months after their wedding, Serena served Dan with divorce papers. 

Something inside Dan snapped. He couldn’t believe that Nate, one of his closest friends since high school, would take Serena from him. He immediately swore to remove himself from the toxic environment of the Upper East Side. He was not supposed to be there in the first place. He was never secure in their acceptance of him, and now he believed he really never would be one of them. Dan traded the apartment he shared with Serena for a little shoebox. He scrubbed his social media clean, deleting all his accounts and connections. He didn’t want anyone from his past life to find him, not that he thought they would actually come looking. However, just in case, he decided Dan Humprey would permanently disappear. The name carried too much baggage to allow him a fresh start. He figured that no one would recognize him without Serena on his arm. Without her, there was nothing special or remarkable about him. That’s when Joe Goldberg was born; nice, generic, and not too memorable. Next, Joe needed a job, and he found himself venturing into a tiny bookshop. He remembered it from years earlier when he was an intern for Jeremiah Harris. They had come for a reading and book signing, it was one of the few things he had done that was really for himself and had nothing to do with Serena. It would be an ideal place to start anew. 

The bell over the front door of the shop rang, bringing Joe back into the present. He looked up to see who had come in. It was a young woman, with blonde hair and a kind face. As she wandered the aisles, eyes skimming the titles on the shelves, Joe couldn’t stop looking at her. There was an unexplainable connection. She was perfect, he thought. His mind started to spin, could she be the reason nothing worked out on the Upper East Side, why his writing career had failed, and why he didn’t want to be Dan Humprey anymore? Could this woman be the great love of his life, the real version of what he pretended he had with Serena? At that moment, he vowed not let her slip through his fingers, no matter the cost. He would learn everything about her, and he would make her love him. 

But first, he had to at least know her name. He walked up the aisle she was perusing, intently watching her every move. Finally he approached her and introduced himself. She said her name was Guinevere, but that everyone called her Beck. 

Beck, he thought to himself, you have no idea what is going to happen next.


End file.
